This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.
The news isn’t great for Schools Over Stadiums, the political action committee formed to attempt to stop the Oakland A’s from becoming the Las Vegas A’s. The Nevada educators who formed the PAC were dealt a blow last week by a state district court judge who rejected their lawsuit over the constitutionality of the public subsidies the team would receive to build a new ballpark.
Judge Kristen Luis did not rule on “the merits of the claims,” per the Los Angeles Times’ Bill Shaikin, but instead, stated that whether or not the money the A’s were receiving from the public coffer was constitutional could not be determined until said money was actually made available to the A’s. And it won’t be unlocked for them until they secure the private financing that they need to pay for the rest of the stadium.
It’s… a little eyebrow-raising, if you ask me, how these little legal loopholes keep getting in the way of the only group in Nevada trying to do anything to stop even more public funds from being used for stadiums instead of to, for instance, fund some of the schools most in need of that sort of thing in the entire country. You can’t determine the constitutionality of the delivery system for the funds until the funds have been delivered, really? That’s what we’re going with? Sure, why not, you’re the judge.
I’m not saying that this isn’t a perfectly legal way to go about things, it’s just that it feels like stretching the truth of the matter as far as it can be stretched to protect the A’s, more than about it being the actual right way to go about things. Technically correct as the best kind of correct and all that. The good news is that there’s still no evidence that the A’s will actually have those public funds released to them in the first place, considering that they’re still drafting up their business plan to present to potential investors for a ballpark that’s supposed to break ground in April of 2025, i.e. less than seven months from now.
In a related story, the A’s have sold their stake in the Coliseum, and the city of Oakland has finalized the deal that makes the new owners of it the African American Sports and Entertainment Group. Which means the A’s have relinquished any legal claim they have to coming back to Oakland if Sacramento and/or Las Vegas doesn’t end up working out. Which could end up being relevant, considering this story from Susan Slusser at the San Francisco Chronicle.
The piece focuses on the challenges for the team that’s already using that stadium, the minor-league Sacramento River Cats, and how basically everything that represents them is being swept away for the incoming A’s. Oh, and also how it doesn’t look like it’s a guarantee that the park will actually be up to snuff, with a little wrinkle that’ll be worth keeping an eye on there, to boot:
“I’ve had conversations with big-league guys from different organizations about this and they just dismiss it out of hand, like, ‘There’s no way we’ll ever have to do that,’ ” said Bay Area based agent Paul Cobbe. “Right now, some of the issues with the A’s playing in Sacramento are frankly a collective bargaining nightmare. When the Blue Jays were in Buffalo, that was force majeure because of COVID, they could change a bunch of collective bargaining stuff immediately. That’s not the case here.”
I’ve been asking around for an answer as to what recourse was available to the Players Association with regards to Sacramento and its conditions, and this is the first concrete bit of info that’s come out. The MLBPA seems to be in wait-and-see mode here, given the silence regarding the issue and what’s found within Slusser’s story, but part of that might be because they have to be, unlike with the Blue Jays and Buffalo. Which means the A’s might end up moving to a park that doesn’t even reach the kind of necessary facilities baseline it’s supposed to, and dealing with that will end up being something that’s reacted to instead of something the union can be proactive about. What a nightmare.
And that’s on top of the points being made about how it’s a park that’s going to be played in a very hot, roofless place, with dimensions that would make the park seem small for big league sluggers even if it were cooler out during game time.
This is going to be the last newsletter entry for the week, regardless of what news might pop up, as I’m heading in for knee surgery on Tuesday. While I was able to prepare some things in advance for my retro video game newsletter, this one is more about reacting to news, so, I’ll catch up in time for next week, and resume as normal when I’m not laying in bed sleeping off painkillers. Thanks for reading, and looking forward to your inbox again next week.
Visit my Patreon to become a supporter and help me continue to write articles like this one.